Chapter 2
It was the absolute limit when Rajes commanded me, “Now sing a song in English!”
He had been pattering on incessantly, asking me to translate sentences from Hindi to English. He also wanted to know, since I live in Mumbai, which film stars I have met, if I have a car, if I can get him a job and how much I weigh. I gave him a mouthful and warned him he should not speak to me again.
I had only been half-listening all this time, my concentration was on leaning forward when there was an incline, leaning backwards when there was a decline, and hanging on to Timku like a burr when she attempted to cross a mountain stream. My fingers were numb from gripping the front of the saddle and I seemed to have lost all sensation in my legs, but still, it was the environment that took my breath away.
It wasn’t a vast vista spread out. We were in the middle of the mountains, and we were following River Mandakini through the valley of wonder. The track hugged the side of the mountain like a reunited lover and I often had to duck under craggy overhang to avoid being decapitated. My view was restricted to just what was to my right – above, fleeting snatches of blue in between mountain tops, somewhat like in Wall Street. Below, sometimes sharp drops to the bottom, just a slip of a hoof away. And always Mandakini.
Every twist and turn revealed her in a different avatar, and it was an endless delight of opening those birthday presents as soon as guests left. Sometimes she was coy and playful, sometimes distant. Sometimes she rebelled, sometimes she was a patina of sweat on a sultry day. And sometimes she was so close you could almost follow the words of the song she was singing.
I would never have imagined that the large mud-slicks sloping down the opposite banks were actually blankets of ice furiously melting underneath and feeding Mandakini in a continuous IV drip, if Rajes didn’t keep yelling, “Ice! Looking! You!” The blankets gathered in folds and formed cowls over the riverbanks, as if to hide the fact that they were losing weight through a secret diet program. Where they met the river, their underbellies were finally exposed, revealing snow-white snow. A novelty for us in hot-all-year-round-Mumbai, I couldn’t help but gape like an open-mouthed tourist, because that’s exactly what I was.
After about 2 hours, we stopped for breakfast. It took Mukul and three locals from a tiny dhaaba to plead with me for 10 minutes, trying to convince me it wasn’t that difficult to dismount, before I conceded and let them slide me down Timku. Supported by them and lurching because I did not know I had legs, I flung myself and my dignity onto a ragged, filthy mattress like I had just checked into the Waldorf-Astoria. The less-afflicted sunned on molded plastic chairs. Pilgrims stumbled by, shouting “Om namaha shivaaye”. Horses offloaded dung in mid-trot. Guides, palkiwallas and ghodawallas commanded people to get out of the way. My eyes were glued to suspiciously-unwashed hands deftly roll a ball of mashed potato seasoned with salt, finely-cut raw green chilli and fresh mountain mint, fill it into a ball of dough, roll it out into a giant paratha and then slap it onto a hot griddle. On contact, the oil sizzled, sending discreet yet definite signals, like a hooker in a funeral parlor. Outside, decorum is maintained, inside they’re hot.
Throughout my pilgrimage, wherever I ate, those aloo parathas were consistently tantalizing, almost making me forget why I was there. Eaten as hot as you can bear without getting blisters in your mouth, the filling explodes through the crisp pastry at first crunch like a sunburst on a rainy day. Washed down with small glasses of hot fragrant tea, the meal fortifies you for many hours, allowing you the luxury of taking in the raw beauty around without being distracted by the raw pain in your ass from riding.
Well-fed and refreshed, I was gung-ho about mounting Timku, and with buccaneering spirit, I continued to follow Mandakini to my destiny. If the mountain didn’t come to Kedar, Kedar sure as hell would get to Kedarnath.
It wasn’t just the occasional wisp of cold air that somehow managed to get inside my collar that made my hair stand on end. It was the possibility that long ago, in another time, the Pandavas may have trod this exact same path, when they came looking for Shiva. The story of Kedarnath is simply charming.
He had been pattering on incessantly, asking me to translate sentences from Hindi to English. He also wanted to know, since I live in Mumbai, which film stars I have met, if I have a car, if I can get him a job and how much I weigh. I gave him a mouthful and warned him he should not speak to me again.
I had only been half-listening all this time, my concentration was on leaning forward when there was an incline, leaning backwards when there was a decline, and hanging on to Timku like a burr when she attempted to cross a mountain stream. My fingers were numb from gripping the front of the saddle and I seemed to have lost all sensation in my legs, but still, it was the environment that took my breath away.
It wasn’t a vast vista spread out. We were in the middle of the mountains, and we were following River Mandakini through the valley of wonder. The track hugged the side of the mountain like a reunited lover and I often had to duck under craggy overhang to avoid being decapitated. My view was restricted to just what was to my right – above, fleeting snatches of blue in between mountain tops, somewhat like in Wall Street. Below, sometimes sharp drops to the bottom, just a slip of a hoof away. And always Mandakini.
Every twist and turn revealed her in a different avatar, and it was an endless delight of opening those birthday presents as soon as guests left. Sometimes she was coy and playful, sometimes distant. Sometimes she rebelled, sometimes she was a patina of sweat on a sultry day. And sometimes she was so close you could almost follow the words of the song she was singing.
I would never have imagined that the large mud-slicks sloping down the opposite banks were actually blankets of ice furiously melting underneath and feeding Mandakini in a continuous IV drip, if Rajes didn’t keep yelling, “Ice! Looking! You!” The blankets gathered in folds and formed cowls over the riverbanks, as if to hide the fact that they were losing weight through a secret diet program. Where they met the river, their underbellies were finally exposed, revealing snow-white snow. A novelty for us in hot-all-year-round-Mumbai, I couldn’t help but gape like an open-mouthed tourist, because that’s exactly what I was.
After about 2 hours, we stopped for breakfast. It took Mukul and three locals from a tiny dhaaba to plead with me for 10 minutes, trying to convince me it wasn’t that difficult to dismount, before I conceded and let them slide me down Timku. Supported by them and lurching because I did not know I had legs, I flung myself and my dignity onto a ragged, filthy mattress like I had just checked into the Waldorf-Astoria. The less-afflicted sunned on molded plastic chairs. Pilgrims stumbled by, shouting “Om namaha shivaaye”. Horses offloaded dung in mid-trot. Guides, palkiwallas and ghodawallas commanded people to get out of the way. My eyes were glued to suspiciously-unwashed hands deftly roll a ball of mashed potato seasoned with salt, finely-cut raw green chilli and fresh mountain mint, fill it into a ball of dough, roll it out into a giant paratha and then slap it onto a hot griddle. On contact, the oil sizzled, sending discreet yet definite signals, like a hooker in a funeral parlor. Outside, decorum is maintained, inside they’re hot.
Throughout my pilgrimage, wherever I ate, those aloo parathas were consistently tantalizing, almost making me forget why I was there. Eaten as hot as you can bear without getting blisters in your mouth, the filling explodes through the crisp pastry at first crunch like a sunburst on a rainy day. Washed down with small glasses of hot fragrant tea, the meal fortifies you for many hours, allowing you the luxury of taking in the raw beauty around without being distracted by the raw pain in your ass from riding.
Well-fed and refreshed, I was gung-ho about mounting Timku, and with buccaneering spirit, I continued to follow Mandakini to my destiny. If the mountain didn’t come to Kedar, Kedar sure as hell would get to Kedarnath.
It wasn’t just the occasional wisp of cold air that somehow managed to get inside my collar that made my hair stand on end. It was the possibility that long ago, in another time, the Pandavas may have trod this exact same path, when they came looking for Shiva. The story of Kedarnath is simply charming.
It is here that Shiva manifested himself as a jyotirling or cosmic light, one of 12, located all over the country. A pilgrimage to Kedarnath is considered one of the holiest for Hindus, and only die-hards come here. Unlike others, the Kedarnath lingam is pyramid-shaped, and as a priest would point out to me when I got to the temple, there are distinct images of Parvati, Shiva’s wife and Ganesh, one of Shiva’s sons, on 2 sides of the pyramid. They are so well etched it is difficult to acknowledge they are natural formations in the black stone. This lingam is worshipped as Shiva in his Sadashiv form.But for me, Shiva kept appearing everywhere, and it was only since the last one year that the nickel dropped. My tryst with him had been planned longer than I knew, and my connection with him - before I was born. Another place, another lifetime.
Why is this lingam pyramidal? According to legend, the Pandavas felt anything but victorious after their win in the battle of Kurukshetra. Wracked with grief and guilt after killing their kith and kin and wanting redemption, they came to the Himalayas looking for Shiva who kept eluding them, finally taking on the form of a bull at Kedarnath. He dived into the ground to escape, but his hump remained on the top – forming a pyramid shape. This lingam is also one of the Panch Kedars – the others, which are different parts of Shiva’s body and also worshipped as his manifestations, are at Tungnath, where his arms appeared, Rudranath, where his face appeared, Madhmaheshwar where his belly appeared and Kalpeshwar, where his matted locks appeared.
posted by Unknown at 7:13 PM
<< Home